HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL

SYNOPSIS:
In this remake of William Castle's classic namesake horror from
1958, billionaire theme-park tycoon Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush,
playing Vincent Price's part and looking suspiciously similar)
plans a scary birthday party for his scary wife Evelyn (Famke
Janssen) at an abandoned psychiatric institute for the criminally
insane. Little does he know that the institute was once the site
of the most bizarre and horrific medical experiments in history,
and that the long dead, horribly mutilated inmates, harbour a
grudge toward anyone who dares host a swank party there. As the
unsuspecting guests arrive, Price reveals the motive for their
invitation; anyone who lives through the night will receive one
million dollars each. But as the festivities begin, Price hardly
gets the chance to deploy the insidious devices he's rigged to
spook the guests into leaving, as the house itself reveals much
deadlier secrets of its own.

"The creators of this flaccid remake should have used some
of the tricks William Castle did in bringing his horror movies to
the screen in the 40s and 50s. Castle had skeletons appear to fly
off the screen and over the audience's heads in his screenings of
House on Haunted Hill. Before screenings of Macabre, he offered
death insurance to anyone who thought their heart may give way,
and in The Tingler he ingeniously wired the theatre seats to
vibrate during the spooky parts. This version of House could have
done with such jolts to wake the audience up. It would be the
only shock they get. The standard prosthetic severed heads and
assorted gore are glaringly fake, and the digital effects
consists of a boring fog-like presence that creeps it way around
the house. The guests could walk to out-run it. It appears that
heavyweight co-producers Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver - who
list Castle's House on Haunted Hill as one of their all-time
favourites - have indulged their artistic license and extended
their egos in attempting to recapture the magic of the original.
The result is merely the corruption of the classic. They employ
B-grade director William Malone (who worked for Zemeckis and
Silver on Tales from the Crypt), and cast five of the most
unimaginably beautiful soap actors as party-guests. Taye Diggs
(last seen in Go) plays Eddie, a former major league baseball
player, Ali Larter (last seen wearing a whipped-cream bikini in
Varsity Blues) plays Sara, a personal assistant passing herself
off as her boss, Bridgette Wilson (last seen on Santa Barbara)
plays Melissa, a wannabe talk-show-host, and to give the casting
a little credibility, Peter Gallagher plays the surreptitious Dr
Blackburn. Chris Kattan gives the film a comic angle in his role
as the House's goofy landlord. But no-one can rescue this
yawnfest no matter how good they look. If you want a really good
haunted house movie, try the original, or the chillingly
grotesque sci-fi horror, Event Horizon, of late."Shannon J. Harvey